This little piece of cyberspace is tended to by your friendly neighborhood international - financial - analyst by day and wanna - be - writer by night. Originally, this page was created to keep everyone back home (Austin, Texas - keep it weird!) updated on my new life in Germany. I hope you can learn a little about life in another culture as well as your own culture through this page, and maybe even have a laugh (usually at my expense) while doing so.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Bad Cop! No Donut!

It finally happened. After about seven years of driving, I received my first speeding ticket. As I was driving home from the soocer game last night, I was stopped on a little road between Kamp-Lintfort and Neukirchen-Vluyn. Seriously, if weapons were legalized in Germany, the cops would have more important and exciting things to do than plot annoying little speed traps at midnight.

Congratulations, though, to the German police force for accomplishing in six months what the American police force couldn't manage to do in six years... and that is catch me. I was clocked going about 25 km/h over the speedlimit, which is going to cost me about *gasp* 70 Euros.

70 Euros is a rather hefty amount to pay for my carelessnes and idiocy... but when I break it down, it's really not that bad. I've been driving (and by "driving", I mean "speeding") for almost seven years now. So... that's about 10 Euros per year. Less than one Euro per month. Approximately .192307692 Euro Cents per week. Eh, I can afford that. And I can do math when Pythagoras isn't involved.

I also received a "Punkt", or a "point." In Germany, you receive points for certain traffic offenses... and when you have X amount of points, you lose your driver's license. Is it even possible to have Punkte when you don't have a valid German or EU license? Is it possible to lose a driver's license you don't even have? Yeah, I'm on the happy yellow-brick-road to success.

Things really could have been much worse, though... for example, had I been caught about a week ago, I wouldn't have even had my driver's license with me. It had to be translated and re-written, which means I drove without it for about three weeks. The cop could have started questioning me about the validity of my Texas license, which he didn't do. And, I could have been driving 40 km/h over the speedlimit as opposed to a mere 25 km/h. Life isn't fabulous, but it's still good.

Now, to balance out that nasty little fine, I'm going to have to go without any new CDs, books, or chocolate for the next several months.

*sigh*

Lyric of the day: "I fought the law and the law won..." (Thanks to an Unknown Artist)

I know! It was disappointing to be stopped by a real cop as opposed to a Blitzer. Being blitzt is another German experience I'd like to have while I'm here. :) Just kidding.I heard that they actually blot out the person in the passenger seat in the pictures. What a thoughtful, caring government to protect their citizens who are in affairs.